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Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Dump Blair

This is from Crisis too:

In the last few days the election has come alive, with the leak of the government's legal advice on the Iraq war. It raised doubts over the legality of the war on six separate grounds, including the obvious point that there is nothing in the UN Charter that invests in the UK governmentthe right to decide how it should be interpreted. The UN Charter makes it very clear that the Security Council has that role. The Secretary general has pronounced the invasion illegal.

Blair has now been caught flat out lying in his statements (a) that in autumn 2002 no decision had been made to invade Iraq, (b) that the WMD intelligence was confirmed and authoritative and now (c) that the legal advice was unequivocal. The government's legal position is that they invaded Iraq because Iraq was in alleged breach of a UN 1991 ceasefire resolution. Why after 12 years did it became so urgent to invade? We know the answer: because soon the UN inspectors would be confirming that Iraq had no WMDs and were therefore not in substantive breach of the ceasefire resolution.

Labour were hoping they had put the issue to rest when the media spun the "Iraqi election" as a success story. Many people now imagine that there is a real Iraqi government, that torture has been stopped, and that things there are slowly improving. They imagine there is no alternative to the occupation because they have not heard that the Saudis offered to replace US/UK troopswith an arab force under UN control. Nonetheless polls indicate a majority now wish to see a troop withdrawal.

The opinion polls tell us the election cannot be won by the tories but is otherwise wide open: on average Labour has a moderate lead but this is misleading. In recent elections Labour has underperformed compared to its poll figures (partly due to abstention by voters in safe Labour seats), but overperformed in terms of seats, due to anti-tory tactical voting.

The election result will hinge on the extent to which anti-Tory tactical voting is replaced by anti-New Labour strategic voting. The word from the grassroots is that this factor will be big. A hard indication of this is the poll finding that, for the first time for over ten years, Libdem voters aresplitting 50/50 on whether they would prefer Labour or Tory.

Blair calculated Iraqis might welcome the invasion, that voters would have forgotten about it by the time of the election, and in any case that opponents of the war have nowhere else to go politically. He was wrong on all three counts. The Dumpblair message is in wide circulation: we can drastically reduce Blair's majority AND, because there will be a 80-100 other MPs in the new Parliament, we can also be confident of denying the Tories a sneak win.

Opinion varies on whether Labour should be denied an overall majority altogether. A report originating in the US and picked up briefly by the BBC last week has it that Blair promised Murdoch that he will not resign, whatever the result of the election. A few days later The Sun gave Blair a lukewarm endorsement. To put a stake through Blair's neocon heart probably requires that Labour lose their overall majority, forcing a review of who is Prime Minister.

Strategicvoter and Dumpblair hope to place a last ad in the Guardian just before the election, listing the 130 or so swing seats, including special cases and Green and Respect target seats. The ad will advise people to vote expressively in all other seats (see appeal below).

There are two wild cards in this election. When neocon leaders Bush and Aznar have faced elections since 9/11 there has been a convenient terrorist incident in the runup to the vote: the "Washington sniper" for the mid terms in 2002, the "Osama Bin Laden" video three days before the 2004 Presidential elections and of course the Madrid bombs which backfired so badly against Aznar. If it happens here, don't believe it.

The other is that there is a serious risk the Blairites will conduct a Bush style major vote fraud using the huge increase in postal voting. Paranoia? Not according to the judge who sentenced Birmingham Labour councillors for fraud in the elections last year, who described the city as like a banana republic. See

USAID Mission Press Releases: Latin America and the Caribbean

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About Me

Eco Warrior turned environmental advisor,Atheist, cycling fanatic, and fan of alternative music, comedy, politics, history and lifestyles.
I am writing a set of blogs that reflect my various interests, including cycling, music, London, politics, & more.
I also Tweet - as LaughingNoam.